Plant responses to belowground variations along elevational gradients in temperate and tropical climates

Soil is a hyper-heterogeneous environment, and how plants respond to changes in belowground variations in soil properties and microclimate is poorly understood. Environmental gradients are useful for examining how root traits mediate plant responses to soil heterogeneity. We measured soil/air temperature, soil water potential and physical/chemical properties in 30 plots along elevational gradients located in France and Mexico, both above- and below the treeline. High elevations were colder than lower elevations at both sites. but in Mexico. precipitation decreased at high elevations. Where as in France, higher elevations Were wetter than lower altitudes. Soil properties Were more idiosyncratic along both gradients. We selected 11 (France) and 14 (Mexico) woody and herbaceous species based on their abundance along the gradients. A range of root and leaf functional traits were measured. Data showed that trends in root traits along gradients were often masked by the hyper-heterogeneous belowground environment. whereas patterns in leaf traits were more evident. Results will be discussed with regard to the effect of elevation as an environmental filter on plant traits

Acute invariant NKT cell activation triggers an immune response that drives prominent changes in iron homeostasis

© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licen ses/by/4.0/.Iron homeostasis is an essential biological process that ensures the tissue distribution of iron for various cellular processes. As the major producer of hepcidin, the liver is central to the regulation of iron metabolism. The liver is also home to many immune cells, which upon activation may greatly impact iron metabolism. Here, we focus on the role of invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells, a subset of T lymphocytes that, in mice, is most abundant in the liver. Activation of iNKT cells with the prototypical glycosphingolipid antigen, α-galactosylceramide, resulted in immune cell proliferation and biphasic changes in iron metabolism. This involved an early phase characterized by hypoferremia, hepcidin induction and ferroportin suppression, and a second phase associated with strong suppression of hepcidin despite elevated levels of circulating and tissue iron. We further show that these changes in iron metabolism are fully dependent on iNKT cell activation. Finally, we demonstrate that the biphasic regulation of hepcidin is independent of NK and Kupffer cells, and is initially driven by the STAT3 inflammatory pathway, whereas the second phase is regulated by repression of the BMP/SMAD signaling pathway. These findings indicate that iNKT activation and the resulting cell proliferation influence iron homeostasis.This work was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR, Grant no. PJT-159775) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC, Grant RGPIN-2018-06442) to MMS. HH received a PhD scholarship from the NSERC. SL is a Research Scholars Emeritus awardee from the FRQS.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

May Measurement Month 2018: a pragmatic global screening campaign to raise awareness of blood pressure by the International Society of Hypertension

Aims Raised blood pressure (BP) is the biggest contributor to mortality and disease burden worldwide and fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of it. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global campaign set up in 2017, to raise awareness of high BP and as a pragmatic solution to a lack of formal screening worldwide. The 2018 campaign was expanded, aiming to include more participants and countries. Methods and results Eighty-nine countries participated in MMM 2018. Volunteers (≥18 years) were recruited through opportunistic sampling at a variety of screening sites. Each participant had three BP measurements and completed a questionnaire on demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. In total, 74.9% of screenees provided three BP readings. Multiple imputation using chained equations was used to impute missing readings. 1 504 963 individuals (mean age 45.3 years; 52.4% female) were screened. After multiple imputation, 502 079 (33.4%) individuals had hypertension, of whom 59.5% were aware of their diagnosis and 55.3% were taking antihypertensive medication. Of those on medication, 60.0% were controlled and of all hypertensives, 33.2% were controlled. We detected 224 285 individuals with untreated hypertension and 111 214 individuals with inadequately treated (systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg) hypertension. Conclusion May Measurement Month expanded significantly compared with 2017, including more participants in more countries. The campaign identified over 335 000 adults with untreated or inadequately treated hypertension. In the absence of systematic screening programmes, MMM was effective at raising awareness at least among these individuals at risk

The body mass index increases the genetic risk scores' ability to predict risk of hepatic damage in European adolescents: the HELENA study

Background: Hepatic disorders are often complex and multifactorial, modulated by genetic and environmental determinants. During the last years, the hepatic disease has been progressively established from early stages in life. The use of genetic risk scores (GRS) to predict the genetic susceptibility to a particular phenotype among youth has gained interest in recent years. Moreover, the alanine aminotransferase (ALT) blood biomarker is often considered as hepatic screening tool, in combination with imaging techniques. The aim of the present study was to develop an ALT-specific GRS to help in the evaluation of hepatic damage risk in European adolescents. Methods: A total of 972 adolescents (51.3% females), aged 12.5¿17.5 years, from the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence study were included in the analyses. The sample incorporated adolescents in all body mass index (BMI) categories and was divided considering healthy/unhealthy ALT levels, using sex-specific cut-off points. From 1212 a priori ALT-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) extracted from candidate gene selection, a first screening of 234 SNPs univariately associated was established, selecting seven significant SNPs (p <.05) in the multivariate model. An unweighted GRS (uGRS) was developed by summing the number of reference alleles, and a weighted GRS (wGRS), by multiplying each allele to its estimated coefficient. Results: The uGRS and wGRS were significantly associated with ALT (p <.001). The area under curve was obtained integrating BMI as clinical factor, improving the predictive ability for uGRS (.7039) and wGRS (.7035), using 10-fold internal cross-validation. Conclusions: Considering BMI status, both GRSs could contribute as complementary tools to help in the early diagnosis of hepatic damage risk in European adolescents.This work was supported by the European Community Sixth RTD Framework Programme (contract FOOD-CT-2005-007034) The data for this study were gathered under the auspices of the HELENA project (http://www.helenastudy.com/), and further analysis was additionally supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBERObn). Miguel Seral-Cortes, the corresponding author, has received funding from the Iberus Talent Pre-doctoral fellowships 2018, under the European Union's H2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 801586. Diego F. Salazar-Tortosa was supported by a Marie S. Curie Global Fellowship within the European Union research and innovation framework programme (2014–2020; ClimAHealth: 101030971)

The body mass index increases the genetic risk scores' ability to predict risk of hepatic damage in European adolescents: The HELENA study

Background Hepatic disorders are often complex and multifactorial, modulated by genetic and environmental determinants. During the last years, the hepatic disease has been progressively established from early stages in life. The use of genetic risk scores (GRS) to predict the genetic susceptibility to a particular phenotype among youth has gained interest in recent years. Moreover, the alanine aminotransferase (ALT) blood biomarker is often considered as hepatic screening tool, in combination with imaging techniques. The aim of the present study was to develop an ALT-specific GRS to help in the evaluation of hepatic damage risk in European adolescents. Methods A total of 972 adolescents (51.3% females), aged 12.5–17.5 years, from the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence study were included in the analyses. The sample incorporated adolescents in all body mass index (BMI) categories and was divided considering healthy/unhealthy ALT levels, using sex-specific cut-off points. From 1212 a priori ALT-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) extracted from candidate gene selection, a first screening of 234 SNPs univariately associated was established, selecting seven significant SNPs (p < .05) in the multivariate model. An unweighted GRS (uGRS) was developed by summing the number of reference alleles, and a weighted GRS (wGRS), by multiplying each allele to its estimated coefficient. Results The uGRS and wGRS were significantly associated with ALT (p < .001). The area under curve was obtained integrating BMI as clinical factor, improving the predictive ability for uGRS (.7039) and wGRS (.7035), using 10-fold internal cross-validation. Conclusions Considering BMI status, both GRSs could contribute as complementary tools to help in the early diagnosis of hepatic damage risk in European adolescents

Development of a genetic risk score to predict the risk of hypertension in european adolescents from the HELENA study

Introduction: From genome wide association study (GWAS) a large number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have previously been associated with blood pressure (BP) levels. A combination of SNPs, forming a genetic risk score (GRS) could be considered as a useful genetic tool to identify individuals at risk of developing hypertension from early stages in life. Therefore, the aim of our study was to build a GRS being able to predict the genetic predisposition to hypertension (HTN) in European adolescents. Methods: Data were extracted from the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence (HELENA) cross-sectional study. A total of 869 adolescents (53% female), aged 12.5–17.5, with complete genetic and BP information were included. The sample was divided into altered (≥130 mmHg for systolic and/or ≥80 mmHg for diastolic) or normal BP. Based on the literature, a total of 1.534 SNPs from 57 candidate genes related with BP were selected from the HELENA GWAS database. Results: From 1,534 SNPs available, An initial screening of SNPs univariately associated with HTN (p < 0.10) was established, to finally obtain a number of 16 SNPs significantly associated with HTN (p < 0.05) in the multivariate model. The unweighted GRS (uGRS) and weighted GRS (wGRS) were estimated. To validate the GRSs, the area under the curve (AUC) was explored using ten-fold internal cross-validation for uGRS (0.802) and wGRS (0.777). Further covariates of interest were added to the analyses, obtaining a higher predictive ability (AUC values of uGRS: 0.879; wGRS: 0.881 for BMI z-score). Furthermore, the differences between AUCs obtained with and without the addition of covariates were statistically significant (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Both GRSs, the uGRS and wGRS, could be useful to evaluate the predisposition to hypertension in European adolescents.The HELENA Study was financial support of the European Community Sixth RTD Framework Programme (contract FOOD-CT-2005-007034). GP-G, has receiving a predoctoral fellowship from the Government of Aragón. DFS-T was supported by a Marie S. Curie Global Fellowship within the European Union research and innovation framework programme (2014–2020; ClimAHealth: 101030971). MS-C has received funding from the Iberus Talent Pre-doctoral fellowships 2018, under the European Union's H2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 801586. This study has been funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) through the project “PI20/00988” and co-funded by the European Union

The impact of pitch values on image quality and radiation dose in an abdominal adult phantom using CT

Purpose: To identify the impact of different pitch values on image quality and effective radiation dose for axial and coronal plane in abdominal adult CT. Methods and materials: Three scans were conducted on an abdominal phantom using a Toshiba Aquilion 16-slice CT scanner with three different pitch values: standard (0.938), detail (0.688) and fast (1.438). Slices were taken from the upper, middle and lower abdomen in the axial plane and anterior, middle and posterior in the coronal plane. The six different anatomical structures were liver, intrahepatic vessels, spleen, pancreas, kidneys and renal vessels, retroperitoneum, aorta and vena cava. A two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) method was used to evaluate images for each pitch with 8 observers using a 3-point Likert scale. SNR was calculated in every plane, slice and pitch factor using the ImageJ software. To estimate effective radiation dose the CT Expo software was used. Results: Detail pitch factor provides superior image quality compared to standard in axial plane when evaluating the liver (p<0.034) and pancreas (p=0.008). However, the results for spleen, kidney, renal vessels, retroperitoneum, aorta and vena cava are not significant when comparing detail vs standard. Standard provides a 26.3% reduction in effective radiation dose (mSv) compared to detail. Fast had the worst image quality in both the axial and coronal plane but the lowest dose. In the coronal plane, standard was superior to both detail (p=0.026) and fast (p=0.023) in terms of image quality. The differences in SNR results were not significant except in standard vs detail in the coronal plane (p=0.03). Conclusion: Detail pitch factor provides superior image quality to standard and fast in the axial plane. Standard had superior image quality to both detail and fast in the coronal plane. The augmentation of effective doses has been inversely proportional to the pitch factors. The most irradiant pitch mode was detail and the less was fast.publishedVersio

High-sensitivity microsatellite instability assessment for the detection of mismatch repair defects in normal tissue of biallelic germline mismatch repair mutation carriers

Introduction: Lynch syndrome (LS) and constitutional mismatch repair deficiency (CMMRD) are hereditary cancer syndromes associated with mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency. Tumours show microsatellite instability (MSI), also reported at low levels in non-neoplastic tissues. Our aim was to evaluate the performance of high-sensitivity MSI (hs-MSI) assessment for the identification of LS and CMMRD in non-neoplastic tissues. Materials and methods: Blood DNA samples from 131 individuals were grouped into three cohorts: baseline (22 controls), training (11 CMMRD, 48 LS and 15 controls) and validation (18 CMMRD and 18 controls). Custom next generation sequencing panel and bioinformatics pipeline were used to detect insertions and deletions in microsatellite markers. An hs-MSI score was calculated representing the percentage of unstable markers. Results: The hs-MSI score was significantly higher in CMMRD blood samples when compared with controls in the training cohort (p<0.001). This finding was confirmed in the validation set, reaching 100% specificity and sensitivity. Higher hs-MSI scores were detected in biallelic MSH2 carriers (n=5) compared with MSH6 carriers (n=15). The hs-MSI analysis did not detect a difference between LS and control blood samples (p=0.564). Conclusions: The hs-MSI approach is a valuable tool for CMMRD diagnosis, especially in suspected patients harbouring MMR variants of unknown significance or non-detected biallelic germline mutations. Keywords: constitutional mismatch repair deficiency; highly sensitive methodologies; lynch syndrome; microsatellite instability; next generation sequencing